Slutsky names terms of Russian delegation's comeback to PACE
MOSCOW. Oct 6 (Interfax) - The Russian delegation will not come back to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) unless the Assembly reports that its Rules Committee has taken the Russian propositions into account and has submitted them for consideration of the Assembly Bureau, State Duma International Affairs Committee Chairman Leonid Slutsky said.
"Let us see what happens at the Assembly Rules Committee and decide accordingly. [Propositions] submitted by the Committee to the Bureau will send a clear message to us," Slutsky told the press on Thursday, answering an Interfax question.
"We are actively interacting with Strasbourg," the committee chairman said, adding that practically the entire Assembly Presidential Committee visited Moscow on September 6-7. "This proves that Strasbourg needs Russia," the parliamentarian said.
"It is hard to imagine the Council of Europe and its Parliamentary Assembly without Russia, which is why Strasbourg is feverishly searching for ways to bring the Russian delegation back," he said.
According to Slutsky, the Russian delegation will not fully resume its work with PACE until "the very possibility of discriminative decisions revising powers of national delegations exists."
"At least, we will not be ready to resume full-scale work with the PACE; a certain limited delegation may visit them in January or no one may go there at all. Let us see what happens at the Assembly Rule Committee," Slutsky said.
The State Duma part of the delegation of the Russian Federal Assembly to PACE has yet to be formed [because of the recent parliamentary elections] but the delegation composition will become known in a month, he said.